Musings on life, food, and yoga...on and off the mat, and on and off the plate

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Recent Eatings...

While I certainly have not mastered the photography of food, I think I should share some of my recent "eats" with you. As I mentioned, I started cooking vegetarian (much to the dismay of my meat loving boyfriend) as much as possible around May of 2009. I have received tons of inspiration from Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks and Supernatural Cooking as well as The Grains of Paradise Blog. I have tried a number of ingredients I had no previous experience with like tempeh, nutritional yeast, and Kabocha Squash. I have also been using lots of dried beans, lentils, and whole grains. I have really tried some delish dishes! Some have not been so good, but cooking with new ingredients is an adventure and I enjoy the ride. I started out the year with a few weeks on the Fat Flush Plan, which is supposed to be a two week diet to detox the body and organs. It is a book and I have done the diet a few times in the past. It is great...you loose weight, get great sleep, your hair, nails and skin glow...it's really great for you. But it is not really fun for a foodie...no fats, salts, sugars, basically, if it has flavor, you can't have it! A few days into it I decided to stay away from meat which was a real challenge because the Fat Flush does not allow carbs or dairy either...I had to sneak in some beans and whole grains to get enough protein. I realized it might just be better to try out a health vegan / vegetarian diet for a few weeks and see what happens.

I made an incredible orange roasted tempeh dish from 101 cookbooks website. This was AMAZING. I highly recommend it. Heidi Swanson is my hero.

Also, I tried my hand at vegan mac and cheese. I added roasted cauliflower and garbanzo beans. There are many recipes for Vegan Mac and Cheese. I used a combination of Nutritional yeast, garlic, oat milk, salt and pepper, mustard, and tamari. I blended everything in the blender and heated it in the microwave. Nutritional Yeast has lots of protein and is very low in fat and has all kinds of nutritional amazing-ness. I haven't perfected this recipe yet, but will post it when I do. My BF even liked this dish...it was really tasty!

Also, I made us a really pretty breakfast of sliced grapefruits, oranges, and minolas. On top I added some agave, sliced almonds, and flax seeds. It was so good and pretty!

Well, I am off to make a healthy dinner for myself: wild rice with chard, kabocha squash, chickpeas, pinenuts and some dried currants. I think it sounds delish!

Aaron has had a rough day, so I am making him a little frozen pizza.

I am also going to cook a tomato gratin that Barefoot Contessa showed on her show on the Food Network for lunches for us for the next day or so.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

I am a 30-ish year old living in San Diego. I love cooking, yoga, walking, travel, the beach, challenging myself, doggies, and enjoying life. I studied philosophy at SDSU and continue to be curious about the philosophy of life, cooking, and yoga....I hope I can share some of my joy with you and get you into the kitchen, onto your yoga mat, and thinking about the sweet things in life.
Also, I have started to lean towards a plant based diet for many reasons: the first being my concerns about agriculutre on our environment, the second being cruelty to animals (I love animals...especially my dog Peroni), and the third being the damaging effect of animal based diets on the human body. I hope I can encourage you to eat more plant based foods and seek out information on the subject.
Now get cooking and eat more tofu!